Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

A World Of Infinite Possibilities: Recoding Popular Culture In Modern U.S. Ethnic Fiction, Todd Martinez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines how the U.S. ethnic authors Ralph Ellison, Maxine Hong Kingston and Junot Díaz reflect the dynamic, reciprocal process of transculturation by decoding popular cultural forms. Using strategies made available by cultural studies, hemispheric theory and neoMarxism, critical attention will be directed to each author’s major literary work: Ellison’s Invisible Man, Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, and Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This dissertation further analyzes a hitherto overlooked area of U.S. multiethnic literary studies: the ethnic subject’s relationship to encoded popular culture forms and how they impact dentity formation. Recent scholarship has focused on the ethnic …

Uncommon Convergences: A Hemispheric And Comparative Approach To The Great Gatsby And Pedro Páramo, Ariel Jade Santos

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the past thirty years, American literary scholarship has shifted focus away from a national approach centered on the United States to a hemispheric methodology that includes all of the countries within this hemisphere. As scholars begin to break down the once iron-clad borders that stood between the American canon and the authors of our hemispheric neighbors, new opportunities have arisen for literary exploration. As an original contribution to this field of scholarship, my thesis project uses a hemispheric and comparative methodology to identify and examine the manifestations of reification and patriarchy in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) …

Before You Knew Me, Isabel Ontiveros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My thesis is a collection of short stories titledBefore You Knew Me. The collection centers on people whose lives have been affected by addiction or loneliness. Families attempt to get through adversities and piece together the fragments of a life they once had. Happiness for both the adults and the children depends on their ability to resist the cycle of dysfunction and the pressures of their peers.

The collection begins with a Gothic story about an abduction. My story "Goldfish" was inspired by Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," where a young girl meets a …